One of them launched her illustrious Old Globe Theatre career by serving as “prop girl” for a 1972 staging of the comedy revue “Beyond the Fringe.” Another marked his first season at the theater by accidentally stabbing the show’s star while working as a bit player in a 1970 production of “Richard II.” ■ And a third amused himself — and, one hopes, the audience — by merrily insulting a castmate by name during a performance of “The School for Scandal” in 1989. ■ Now these longtime members of the extended Globe family are back — in some cases after many years — to act in the theater’s production of “Pygmalion,” George Bernard Shaw’s classic story of a ragged flower girl who gets made over for the sake of polite society. ■ And if it sounds as though they are the ones in need of a little refinement — or were, anyway, back then — well, that happens to be pretty much what the Globe provided to most of them. ■ The lead actors in “Pygmalion” — directed by Globe returnee Nicholas Martin on the occasion of the play’s 100th birthday — are the Tony-winning stage and screen star Robert Sean Leonard as Professor Henry Higgins and the Broadway-seasoned Charlotte Parry ﻿as the flower peddler Eliza Doolittle. ■ But in the kind of confluence of locally steeped talent that has been rare at the Balboa Park theater in recent years, the cast also includes four Globe associate artists in prominent roles: Kandis Chappell, Don Sparks, Deborah Taylor and Paxton Whitehead. (A fifth associate, Robert Morgan, is designing the production’s costumes.) ■ There are some 45 living actors, directors, designers and others who are designated as associate artists of the Globe. Most were so anointed during the fertile period when the theater was run by the late founding director Craig Noel, artistic director Jack O’Brien and (a bit later) managing director Tom Hall.

A number of the associates still work frequently at the Globe, including actors Robert Foxworth and Robin Pearson Rose, designer Ralph Funicello and fight director Steve Rankin. Others, such as Marion Ross and David Ogden Stiers, remain well-known names in San Diego and beyond but are rarely seen on the theater’s stages.

Once upon a time, though, associate artists were the backbone of Globe productions. Such was their prominence that as recently as 1995, the theater devoted a full six-week production to showcasing their work.

Considering the history that the four actors who have returned for “Pygmalion” have with this place, there’s no shortage of stories to tell. And those tales — and laughs — flow freely as the quartet gathers before rehearsal one recent weekday morning.

When it comes to explaining what the Globe has meant to them, though, the tone shifts from playful to serious.

“I grew up in San Diego — I went to San Diego High School, and I barely graduated,” Sparks is saying. “My home life was horrible, and I really had few options. But because the Globe was a community theater in the winter, I could come audition for those plays.”

Sparks’ comic work quickly caught Noel’s eye, and the director’s encouragement led to the young actor’s casting in the theater’s summer Shakespeare Festival, alongside prominent professional actors.

“I was an apprentice, and I got to be around with these gods,” as Sparks puts it now. (One was the late Richard Kneeland, the actor whom Sparks stabbed just below the nose with a prop knife one night — a casualty of a poorly rehearsed jail scene. Kneeland was only slightly hurt, and very gracious, Sparks recalls.)

Sparks, who has since worked on Broadway as well as in TV and film, says any education he possesses came from “just hanging around people like these three, discussing motivation and characters, learning a little bit about history, learning Shakespeare. You discuss playwrights, you discuss big ideas.

“This whole world, thanks to Craig and the Globe, was given to me.”

Revisiting Shaw

As it happens, only one of the four actors has deep experience with “Pygmalion.”

Not Taylor, who’s returning to the Globe for the first time in five years; she has just about done it all, but never this play. (She’s cast as Mrs. Pearce.)

Not Sparks (Mr. Doolittle), back after 12 years, who can only claim to have seen “My Fair Lady,” the stage musical (and later film) famously based on Shaw’s play.

Not even Chappell (Mrs. Higgins), the onetime Globe prop girl who now has played more roles at the theater than any other woman in the theater’s 78-year history. (Chappell did have a single performance as Eliza in “My Fair Lady” while a student at San Diego’s Kearny High, and wrote in the school yearbook that her ambition was “to play Eliza Doolittle on Broadway.”)

So all eyes turn to Whitehead, the British-born actor and director who’s been away more than a decade. He’s the ringer here, starting with the fact that he was artistic director of the renowned Shaw Festival in Canada for 11 years starting in 1967.

“Yes, it’s been with me a very long time,” he says of “Pygmalion” in his trademark baritone. “But I have not played Pickering (before) in the play. I’ve only done it in “My Fair Lady” — twice. And I’ve played Higgins twice in ‘My Fair Lady.’

“And in my youth, I played Freddy.

“And in high school, Mrs. Pearce.”

That last mention draws laughs all around, as well as a demand from Taylor: “Oh, you must help me then!”

Whitehead’s smiling response: “You have to lower your voice about two octaves.”

Not incidentally, Whitehead and the others have worked previously with director Martin, a former actor himself. Which brings us to Whitehead’s ad-libbed line during that ’89 “School for Scandal.”

“I did say, ‘Oh, this evening the management regrets to announce that the role of Sir Benjamin Backbite, usually played by Nicholas Martin, will be played by Nicholas Martin,’” Whitehead recalls.

Martin, too, took that graciously. (And if he didn’t, there may be more good Globe stories to tell once “Pygmalion” is done.)